Find a baby bird  leave it alone

Recently, some residents in the Colonial Heights neighborhood in New Bern tried to be Good Samaritans when a baby bird apparently fell out of its nest. After four days, they had learned a lesson in the “dos and don’ts” of finding a bird out of the nest.

Recently, some residents in the Colonial Heights neighborhood in New Bern tried to be Good Samaritans when a baby bird apparently fell out of its nest. After four days, they had learned a lesson in the “dos and don’ts” of finding a bird out of the nest.

The man who first found the plump baby noted it had developed wings, feather growth and coloring. Circling above the yards were the parents - two angry blue jays. The baby was hopping about and since the man had always been told not to touch a fallen baby bird, he left it alone — hoping for the best in a neighborhood that has a number of meandering cats.

By the next day, the baby, who was later nicknamed “Bird Boy,” was discovered by a neighbor in her yard. She lifted it gently into an outdoor bird cage with the door open. She left to find some bird seed, but when she returned, the baby bird was gone.

Over the next two days, “Bird Boy” appeared in yet another neighbor’s enclosed yard. That neighbor had been taught to leave baby birds alone.

By the fourth day, the man who originally found “Bird Boy” was walking past his backyard garden and heard a chirp. There was the bird, standing on some debris inside a bucket, half-filled with rainwater.

This time, he scooped the baby up and above its screeching and the cries from the blue jay parents from overhead, he put it back in the neighbor’s bird cage.

Then, he did the sensible thing and called Ellen Westermann, director of WildARC - Wild Animal Rehabilitation Center, on Old Cherry Point Road.

Westermann was blunt and to the point.

“Put the bird back where you found him,” she said.

The neighbors obeyed and by the fifth day, the little bird that had drawn so much attention, had apparently gotten his wings and vanished.

Westermann said that spring and summer are ‘baby season’ for birds. It is also the season for humans to let their good intentions run amuck.

“They think if they see a young bird hopping around and it can’t fly, then it’s got to be hurt,” she said.

Most wild bird families have four of five young, which are fed about every half hour by the parents.

As the babies get bigger, sometimes they no longer fit in the nest.

“They bolt. They come out of the nest and hit the ground,” she said. “That doesn’t mean they are hurt. It just means they don’t have a nest anymore.”

The parents still take care of the baby birds, with added difficulties now that the youngsters are no longer in a contained nesting space.

Page 2 of 2 - “Now they are running around all over the place,” she said. “Both parents feed and they are looking around for the kids and they are trying to protect them from dogs, cats and kids.”

She said the cats and the dogs are the problem, not the baby birds.

“Control the pet and let the wild animal be where it is supposed to be,” she advised.

She said that of the more than 130 admissions to WildARC this month, the majority have been birds.

“I beg them to take the bird back and let the parents finish raising it,” she said.

Another piece of advice is “don’t try to feed the baby bird.” Even if successful, the baby will then stop squawking and the parents can’t find it.

“They are teenagers,” she said of the young birds. “They just don’t have their pilot’s license yet.”

She said as the wings grow strong, usually in a few days, the babies will go airborne.

Westernmann attributes lack of knowledge to the way humans react to finding what they think is a helpless baby bird.

One “old wives tale” sticks out — “If you handle a baby bird, the mother won’t come near it again.”

“Birds cannot smell,” she said. “So, you can pick a baby up and put it back in its nest. If you find a baby that has fallen out of the nest and you can reach the nest, put the baby back in the nest. Birds don’t have a clue what you smell like.”

She said the same goes for mammals such as bunnies.

“The parental maternal instinct of the parent overrides anything that may have touched that baby animal,” she said. “All that the parent thinks about ‘is my baby safe?’”

She also pointed out that birds are protected under federal law and special permits are required to care for them.

“So, if you take a baby bird in to care for it, you are breaking the law and you don’t know what you are doing,” she said. “You will just be burying it.”

Westermann said the situation changes if the bird is obviously injured.

“We take them in if they need help. If they don’t need help, let the parents do their job,” she said. “Our whole mission is to balance nature, not to kidnap nature.”

Charlie Hall can be reached at 252-635-5667 or Charlie.hall@newbernsj.com.